2022 Cincinatti Reds - Return to the Big Red Machine!

[WarningTrakPower]

With the IRL MLB offseason getting under way, I have decided to make start a new sim with the Cincinatti Reds but starting after the 2021 season concluded!

I need your help with trading difficulty sliders!!! Please comment below with your suggestions below for how to adjust to make more challenging. Here is what I have adjusted them to so far!



Here is how the MLB standings finished for the 2021 simulation season!



Reds finished at 74-88, which is worse than I expected.
Tigers somehow managed to lose 115 games! Robbie Grossman put up a 4.5 WAR season! Miguel Cabrera had -1.5 WAR in only 95 games!
They were somehow 13 games worse than their pythag record!
Angels finished with the second worst record in the AL. Shohei Ohtani was very underwhelming on the mound (5.68 ERA in 17 starts) and very mediocre with the bat (.779 OPS)!
Pirates finished at 81-81, which was 2nd best in the NL Central! JT Brubaker was amazing for them posting an ERA of 2.82 (3.45 FIP)!
Guardians finished 98-65 which was +7 compared to their pythag record!

Here is how the Reds pitching performed in 2021!


Having four starters each make 30+ starts is incredibly lucky, yet it didn't amount to a great deal of success.

Wade Miley - Pending free agent and we won't be bringing him back.
Luis Castillo - Appears to have had a "bad luck" season with an inflated ERA and a decent FIP of 4.09. Predicted to make around $7m in arbitration, which is good value still.
Amir Garrett - Had an excellent year in the bullpen with a sub 3 ERA & FIP. Homer suppression / limiting the walks may have been a fluke (45 rating for movement and control).
Vladimir Gutierrez - "Extreme flyball" pitcher with 35 movement = trade bait candidate for sure. Still has two option years remaining and just turned 26.
Jeff Hoffman - The often injured / now out of options pitcher will likely be traded / non-tendered.
Hunter Greene - Made his MLB debut this yeae and the results were average. He only made one start, but will most likely be in the rotation for 2022.
Nick Lodolo - After a very decent AAA season, he was rewarded with his first MLB callup in September. Looking like he will be in our rotation in 2022 also.

Here is how our hitters did in 2021!


Joey Votto - What an absolute monster season he had at the plate!
Nick Castellanos - What an total dud of a season. With two years left at $16m per, moving him will be one our top priorities this offseason.
Jose Barrero - Looking like a backup infielder, not a starting shortstop.
Mike Moustakas - Missed 5 weeks due to an elbow injury but had a great year with the bat. He will most likely be traded this offseason as he is due to make $16m in 2022 and $18m in 2023.
Dan Vogelbach - Claimed off waivers at the end of July and didn't hit / barely played. A certain non-tender candidate for sure.

Notable free agents
Tucker Barnhart - We need to have an elite defensive catcher. If we can trade for someone with better catcher ability, we will attempt to bring him back!
Heath Hembree / Joakin Soria / Shane Greene - Decent seasons from Hembree & Soria, but we will look to build a bullpen via trade / waiver wire / internal candidates.
Wade Miley - As mentioned above, we will be letting him walk.

2021 MLB draft recap
17th overall - Josh Baez - HS corner OF. Unable to sign unfortunately (but not really).
30th overall - Sam Bachman - College RHP. Pitched remainder of season in low A Daytona. Signing bonus of $4.59m.
35th overall - Peyton Stovall - HS 2B who looks pretty unremarkable. Signing bonus above $2m.
53rd overall - Izaac Pacheco - HS 3B / future 1B. Looks like future trade bait piece. Signing bonus of $1.38m.
89th overall - Braden Montgomery - HS corner OF. Does not look like future MLB talent at this time.

Rough 2022 Team Outline
SP1 - Sonny Gray - $10.7m in 2022
SP2 - Luis Castillo - $7.5m (arb estimate)
SP3 - Tyler Mahle - $2.6m (arb estimate)
SP4 - Hunter Greene
SP5 - Nick Lodolo
SP6 - Tejay Antone - Will be in bullpen / only has 40 stamina.

Bullpen options
Amir Garrett - $2.4m (arb estimate)
Jose DeLeon - $1m (arb estimate) - Out of options / walks too many guys
Lucas Sims - $1.1m (arb estimate)
Tony Santillan - 24yr old former SP. Poor movement/control for rotation, but may be decent in relief role.
Carson Fulmer - Out of options / would be ok middle relief option.

Hitters we are certainly keeping
Starting catcher - TBD, possibly Barnhart
Backup catcher - Tyler Stephenson - Future trade bait. Currently 40th best MLB prospect and we need to capitalize on this!
1B - Joey Votto - Signed for 2 more years and $50m.
2B - Jonathan India - Had a very good rookie season and will be our 2B for next little bit. Unfortunately can't really play another position at an above average level.
SS - Need to find a glove first SS this offseason
3B - Eugenio Suarez - Signed for 3 more years and $33m. If we can trade him, we might. But he may be with us for at least 2022.
Backup INF - Jose Barrero - Will be 24 in April and will be our backup infielder.
LF - Jesse Winker - Due for a nice arb increase to an estimated $6.5m. Will be with us for at least 2022 after having a nice 2021. Defensive liability in LF.
CF - Need to find glove first CF this offseason
RF? - Nick Senzel - Still a pre-arb player, but we need to find him a home defensively. Started 79 games in CF last year and looking more like a RF for us in 2022.
4th OF / RH bat - Should be able to add a RH bat to play some LF if we need to platoon Winker at some point.

Now time to do a little roster cleanup before we start simulating!
Don't forget to comment below with your trade difficulty suggestions!!!

[MathBandit]

I use +4 Hard, +2 Favour Prospects, and 50/25/15/10 evaluation settings.

[WarningTrakPower]

As part of our roster cleanup, we are making this our first trade of the offseason!



Albert Almora Jr is an instant defensive upgrade for CF or potentially our backup OF for 2022. Due to make an estimated $2m in arbitration.
Joey Lucchesi gives us another RP/5th SP option for 2022. Due to make only $800k in arbitration.

Kyle Farmer is a versatile player, but at 31yr old and going to arbitration it was worth moving him out.
Alex Blandino is now out of options and was facing a DFA.
Errol Robinson is a light hitting upper minors 2B only guy.

Also, we have traded Mike Freeman for Travis Blankenhorn.



He just turned 25 and still has one option year remaining.

[WarningTrakPower]

Here is what settled on for trading difficulty.
If this is not challenging enough, we will increase the difficulty.

[WarningTrakPower]

We have trade Nick Castellanos to the CWS for Dallas Keuchel!
They are retaining half of Keuchel's 2022 salary!



So we are paying Keuchel $9m for 2022 and dumped the remaining $32m of Castellano's contract on the White Sox.
Also, they wanted Max Schrock and he is easily replaceable.

Whether we keep Keuchel or trade him later in the offseason is to be determined at this point.

[WarningTrakPower]

Well it isn't a "big" splash, it is an important one.
We have signed Roberto Perez to a one year deal worth $1.5m

[WarningTrakPower]

We have added a new shortstop Hai-Liang Choe!

[WarningTrakPower]

Prior to spring training, we decided to offer a few contract extensions to guys who could have earned bigger arb contracts if they had good seasons.
These are usually low risk/high reward targets. Luis Castillo is the rare exception to our usual approach here.



Mike Moustakas went on the IL in late March and likely won't be back until late April.

After spring training was complete, it was time to make a few roster decisions.
First, we DFA'd Aristides Aquino since he was out of options. Probably should have tried to find him a new home this offseason, but wouldn't have got much/anything in return anyways.
Second, we traded Carson Fulmer (out of options) to Tampa for Mike Brosseau. Tampa had already optioned Brosseau after spring training and he has one option year remaining. He will be a AAA bat in case we need to call someone up.



Also, we decided to option Vladimir Gutierrez to AAA to start the year. We are going to give him a few starts in the rotation and if it isn't working we will lock him in as a reliever.

Lastly, we are actively looking to trade Tyler Stephenson. We don't think his trade value will ever be any higher and with only a 50 catcher ability he shouldn't be our everyday option.
The goal would be to get another top tier prospect who is still a few years away from being MLB ready.



Next post will include the current 26 man roster to start the 2022 season!

[WarningTrakPower]

Alright, we are ready to start the 2022 season!
Here are our 13 pitchers to start the season.



As the old saying goes, you can never have too much pitching. We decided to keep Dallas Keuchel for the time being and will start the season with a 6 man rotation.

The bullpen will be an ongoing work in progress. Even if we were to add, we would need to send someone out (likely via trade).
Jose DeLeon and Jeff Hoffman are both out of options, so they may be likely trade candidates.

Here are our 13 batters to start the season.



We like our top four hitters (Votto, Winker, Suarez and India) and the combination of above average defense to go with them (Perez, Almora and Choe).
Nick Senzel has moved over to RF and is looking like a future trade chip.

We will sim to around June 1 and provide a team update at that point!

[WarningTrakPower]

Well, we are 1/3 of the way through the season and we have only managed a 21-33 record so far. Here is a look at our overall team stats.



Here is how our starting pitchers have done so far!
Tyler Mahle needs to turn his season around, or we may be forced to trade him away. We signed him to a $2.8m contract for next season in April.



We have taken pitching controls away from David Bell so we can run a 6 man rotation, but that soon may be coming to an end.

Here is how Hunter Greene's 5 starts have gone so far. Eventually we may be forced to convert him to a reliever.



Here is how our bullpen has done so far!
Joey Lucchesi has been hit hard (.383 BABIP against), so hopefully his numbers will even out as the season continues.



Here is how our hitters have done so far!
Jonathan India has been tremendous this year. He has 11 homers in just over 200 PAs!
Jesse Winker has had an inconsistent season. He hit for a .832 OPS in April, but followed it up with a .650 OPS in May.



Nice to see Nick Senzel contributing with the bat. He has bought himself some time with our team, for now.
We have to find a way to get Eugenio Suarez going. His BABIP is only .185, so he will hopefully turn it around soon.

Next, we will sim up to the all star break / draft and see if we turned this season around!

[WarningTrakPower]

We are currently sitting at 43-57, here are our overall team stats and rankings.



Let's recap some of the moves we made since the last team update.

June 17th - Jonathan India tore a thumb ligament in a collision with Fernando Tatis Jr at 2B. Missed about 5 weeks.
June 20th - Albert Almora Jr strained his back and missed about a month.
June 23rd - Luis Castillo strained his forearm and is still not healthy enough for a rehab assignment.
June 26th - Jeff Hoffman ruptured a tendor in his finger and will miss the rest of the season.

July 22nd - Traded Mike Moustakas to the Angels. The additonal players included don't amount to anyone worth mentioning.



July 22nd - Traded Jose De Leon (WSH) (returning from rehab assignment and out of options), Amir Garrett (SEA) and Shogo Akiyama (NYY) for very little in return.
July 30th - Trade Dallas Keuchel back to CWS.

Here is how our pitchers have done so far.



Nick Lodolo is having a very nice rookie season.
Tony Santillan has put up 1.4 WAR in late game relief. The stopper role seems to work for his profile.
Lucas Sims is walking more batters than normal plus his BABIP against is .442! His season FIP of 3.18 is very nice though.

Here is how our hitters have done so far.



Eugenio Suarez slowly turned his season around after having this stretch of games.



This offseason we will have some work to do to cleanup the roster redundancy and bring in some better hitters.

Our next recap will be after the season!!

[WarningTrakPower]

We finished the season with a respectful record of 74-88.
We had a strong August (18-10) and a poor September (10-17).



The 2022 World Series Champions are ...



Let's take a look at the end of season individual pitching stats.



Luis Castillo had a terrific season putting up 3.5 WAR in only 22 starts. He is signed for $11m for next year.

Nick Lodolo was having a great season, but his last 11 starts were pretty rough. We look forward to seeing him build on this year next season.

Hunter Greene had a good second half to bring his numbers back to more respectful. Take a look at his month by month pitching splits.
The BB/9 is still worrisome and his FIP was still above 5.



Tyler Mahle was very good in July & August, but pretty poor in September. Although he is signed for next year, he may be used as trade bait.

Sonny Gray had a terrible July (ERA almost 9) followed by an outstanding August (ERA of 1.47) and an average September.
He has a team option for next year at $12.7m and just turned 33.
This will be a tough decision to make on him.

Lucas Sims was hit hard all season (ended with BABIP against of .385). We removed him from the closer role on August 1, but he struggled in September (battling a DTD injury).
We decided to extend him at $1.9m for next season.

Tony Santillan was having a very strong season when we made him the closer on August 1.
He really struggled after that unfortunately. In 29.2 innings he allowed 24 earned runs. He gave up 7 homers in 14 innings in August.
Here are his pitching splits by month.



Joel Kuhnel is one of the high velo (97-99 Mph) with low K/9 (career 7.1) guys.
Personally, I think this guys are pure gold in the bullpen. They always seems to do really good.

Now let's take a look at the batters.



Jonathan India had an excellent season, leading our team in WAR even though he had less than 400 PAs.

Nick Senzel had a decent season in RF. I am glad we signed him to an extension for next year, but we feel like he might be a good trade candidate.

Joey Votto is slowing down a bit and is signed for $25m for next year.

Jesse Winker had another strong season for us. His arbitration estimate is still only $8.5m, so we may continue to hold on to him for the 2023 season.

Eugenio Suarez had a really really poor season. We have to somehow find a way to get out of the remaining 2 years and $22m owed to him.
He was extremly unlucky at the plate with a BABIP of only .215 somehow.
The K% of 36.7 is very alarming also.

Why don't we check in on a few of our potential upcoming pitching prospects?



Of these four guys, Franco Aleman is probably the only "non trade bait" player. He is probably a future reliever also, but will stick around in AAA rotation for 2023.

On the brighter side of things, here are a few of our potential upcoming hitting prospects.



Michael Siani will almost certainly be our starting CF next year.
Austin Hendrick (12th overall in 2020) worked his way up from low A to AA last year.
He will start at AA again and hopefully move up to AAA early in the 2023 season.
Rece Hinds struggled a fair bit in AA after a mid season promotion. He may be future trade bait with his batting profile.
Reed Trimble had a monster season in low A (.355/.394/.543) which caught our attention to put him on our shortlist.
He "looks" almost fully developed, so he will most certainly slow him down as he progress through the next few levels in the minors.

That sums up our 2022 season. Check back next time where we recap the offseason before the 2023 season!

[WarningTrakPower]

Much to our surprised, we found a trade partner for Eugenio Suarez!
We are making this trade with the Chicago Cubs!



We are able to shed all of the remaining $22m of the Suarez contract and only add $3.5m of the Kyle Hendricks contract (since they retain 75%).

We needed to add someone of value to reduce the amount of retention required to dump Suarez, and we settled on Travis Blankenhorn.
The Twins surprisingly were willing to trade us Travis last offseason, but we didn't really have a spot for him to play.
He was blocked by Jesse Winker in LF and is average in RF, but he sure can hit. He has a career OPS of .900 in 370 AAA PAs and had an OPS of .819 for us last season (only 14 starts).
We could have sent them TJ Friedl instead, but we opted to keep him in the fold as still has all 3 option years remaining (Travis was out of options).

Ethan Small was the 28th overall pick in 2019 and was released by the Brewers early in 2022 (for some reason).
We had signed him to fill a hole in our AA rotation and had him slated for AAA until making this trade.

Martin Gair is a future reliever at best. The Reds drafted him in the 12th round in 2021 (prior to taking over the team).

Kyle Hendricks has had back to back mediocre season (ERAs of 4.53 & 5.06 to go with FIPs of 4.79 & 4.73).
He will turn 33 in a couple days and we will most likely try to flip him come February or so.

[WarningTrakPower]

After much deliberation, we have decided to add a new SS heading in to the 2023 season. We have traded for Adalberto Mondesi Jr!



This trade ended up evolving in to a much bigger trade than we originally intended, so let's break it down.

KC was, somewhat surprisingly, interested in Tyler Stephenson (even though they still have Sal Perez).

Once they agreed to a 1 for 1 swap, we wanted to see if perhaps we could offload Kyle Hendricks on them.
We also wanted to see if we could squeeze MJ Melendez in to the deal too (65 catcher ability AAA depth).
They (only) wanted Andruw Salcedo in return which we happily obliged.
Salcedo is a young MiLB org filler with no real MLB future potential.

After looking at the KC 40 man / upper minors we stumbled upon Justin Bruihl. They had acquired him from LAD for Greg Holland mid 2021.
Bruihl had a very nice 2022, while keeping his BB/9 under 3 and having excellent HR suppression (sub 1).
We are upgrading from RJ Alaniz, who was fine for us but is now out of options.
In order to make the deal work, they wanted Aramis Ademan. Although originally we were hesitant, we likely won't have room for him and he would have been (we except them to add him to 40 man at some point) a MiLB free agent next offseason

After all that, we wanted to see if they might eat some of Mondesi's salary and they were able to take on 20%. This leaves us paying him $6.8m for 2023 prior to him hitting free agency!

Next, we will recap some of the other roster moves that led up to this point before simming to the end of spring training!

[WarningTrakPower]

Let's recap a few of the moves we made this offseason, shall we?

December 2nd - Resigned Jesse Winker for 1yr and $9m (via arbitration).
December 4th - Traded Eugenio Suarez (plus others) for Kyle Hendricks (75% retained). See previous post for more detailed breakdown.
December 4th - After trading away Suarez, we noticed SF had former Red Wandy Peralta on their trading block.
We were able to flip Brandon Brennan for him by adding former 4th round pick (2020) Mac Wainwright.
Since they were willing to retain 65%, we are paying Peralta 840k for 2023.



December 8th - Signed contracts for 2024 with Tejay Antone ($1.5m) and Joey Lucchesi ($1.4m).
Both relievers could have cost a fair bit more if they performed well in 2023, so good to have them signed early.
December 19th - Resigned Roberto Perez for 2023 at $1.5m.
January 4th - Signed free agent RF Masahi "Doo Doo" Yokoyama for one year and $1.75m.



Although his contact rate is a bit scary (and he is not a great defender in RF), we will take a flier on this guy.
He will most likely form some sort of platoon with TJ Friedl (although both are LH).

Nick Senzel will be taking over 3B duties (to start the year), so we wanted to shore up our OF depth.

February 1st - Acquired Christian Vazquez from WSH for Rece Hinds and Oscar Colas.
Washington will retain 80% of the $17.7m remaining on his contract.
We will be paying Vazquez $1.68m for 2023 and $1.86m for 2024.



At the start of the offseason, we noticed that Vazquez had been added to the trading block, but when we tried to trade for him executed his no trade clause to veto a trade.
When we circled back on February 1st, he was willing to accept a trade away from the Nationals.

Rece Hinds was someone they were very interested in and we thought that now was the time to capitalize on his trade value.
His future role would likely be over at 1B, but the batter profile is less than desirable.



They were willing to eat some salary initially, but by adding Oscar Colas we were able to bring it all the way up to 80%.



After signing Yokoyama (and reviewing our upper minors OF depth), we were willing to part with Colas.
His player personality is pretty poor, but he did have back to back really good seasons in AA & AAA before getting a cup of MLB coffee.

After getting a new starting catcher, that is when we started to look around at who might be interested in Tyler Stephenson. His trade recap is in the post above this one.

Now you are totally caught up and hopefully these summaries provide a decent explanation on what thought process went in to each transaction.

The next recap will (most likely) be at the end of spring training.

[WarningTrakPower]

First, let's talk about what happened on March 29th that caused a decent sized ripple affect to our lineup.

Michael Siani - After catching a line drive from Aaron Nola (top of 3rd), Siani had to be replaced after getting injured. It was later revealed that he had a "fractured foot" and will miss a minimum of 3 weeks plus rehab assignment.

Jesse Winker - After doubling off of Aaron Nola (bottom of 3rd), Winker had to be replaced with a pinch runner. After further testing it revealed a "severe hip strain" and he is expected to a miss a minimum of 4 months plus rehab assignment.

*It's all Aaron Nola's fault

Thankfully, we had signed three veteran MLB outfielders as AAA depth at the start of spring training.
Michael Taylor will now be our CF until Siani returns from injury.
Chris Owings will serve as a RH backup/platoon bat in RF/LF. He can also play average defense in the infield.

In losing Winker, our lineup was looking very thin. Joey Votto and Jonathan India were our only batters with a career MLB OPS over .750!

Initially, we had considered adding another OF bat, but the potential trade partners were asking for more than we were willing to give up.
One player we are keeping in mind as a mid season trade target is Anthony Santander.

Next, we decided to see if maybe there was any 3B trade candidates and we found a trade partner.
We have acquired Josh Donaldson from the Twins!



With 60% salary retention, we are paying Josh $8.4m for 2023. He does has a team option for $16m for 2024, but he will be 38 next year too.

The package of pitchers going back to Minny mostly all felt like org fillers type guys.
Sean Burke was a 4th round pick ($1.02m signing bonus too) and he may be a back end of rotation starter, his MiLB stats are underwhelming.
Miguel Obeso was a 10th round pick, but he is destined for relief role.
Juan Gonzalez is a possible wildcard. He's only 22, but been in MiLB for 5 years now. Low movement / high HR/9 stats are too risky for our liking.
Jacob Maton was a 14th round pick and is the opposite of Burke. His ratings aren't great, but he has back to back good MiLB seasons.
Ryan Hendrix is former 5th round pick (2016) that made his MLB debut last year. He owns a career professional pitching BB/9 of 4.4 and we were likely to demote him to AAA anyways.

Now, let's take a look at the rest of the hitters on our opening day roster.
These are their stats from last season.



Catchers - Christian Vazquez (75 catcher ability) had a nice hitting season last year.
Roberto Perez (75 catcher ability) will be better suited in backup duties and starting once every 4/5 days.
1B - Joey Votto took a sizable step back at the plate last year, but still had an OPS just below .800.
2B - Jonathan India needs to stay healthy for us. We may try to get him some reps at 1B to slide over from 2B potentially next season.
3B - Josh Donaldson also needs to stay healthy (he is "fragile"). Another .800+ OPS season would be excellent from our new 3B.
SS - Adalberto Mondesi (70 infield range) is a pending free agent and we hope has a really strong year so he gets paid this offseason.
He is electric on the basepaths (37 SB & 3 CS last year) and has a career batting average of .251.
LF - Nick Senzel is also now listed as "fragile". If we can get anything similar to his 2022 year, we were be more than pleased.
He may migrate to a platoon/bench role if we can add to our lineup.
CF - Michael Taylor (70 OF range) did not play at all in 2022 (unfortunately). We had considering signing him a few times, but Siani was getting his reps in AAA.
RF - Masahi Yokoyama is going to start the year as our RF. As mentioned before, his contact rating of 40 is scary.
If he struggles, we can move TJ Friedl in to a starting role.

Now let's take a look at our starting rotation.



Luis Castillo gets the ball on opening day (@ MIL up against Corbin Burnes).
Sonny Gray is back for likely his last year with us. He was able to keep the HR/9 respectable last year, but struggles keeping runners off base with a BB/9 of 3.7.
We would be lying if we said we haven't considered moving him before the season gets started.
Nick Lodolo moves up to our #3 starter after having a very nice rookie season.
His ability to limit walks will keep him on our team for many years to come.
Tyler Mahle slides down to our #4 starter. Overall he had a fine season last year, but he is a pending free agent this offseason.
For his career, his FIP is 4.65, which is not ideal. He may also be a trade candidate.
Vladmir Gutierrez had a very unexpected 2022. After a pretty poor 2021, we decided to send him to the AAA rotation, rather than carrying him in our bullpen.
He had 21 really strong starts to force his way back to MLB. He followed that up with 8 very good starts with us.
Control is going to be key for Vladmir also. Especially if his HR/9 starts to match his movement rating of 40.
Hunter Greene is the odd man out right now is our last cut from spring training. Hopefully he can replicate what we say from Gutierrez last year.

Now let's take a look at the relief pitchers.



Tony Santillan is going to start the year as our closer despite the poor end to his season last year. He had 15.5 K/9 in spring training.
Lucas Sims is likely next in line for closer duties, should we need to make a switch.
Wandy Peralta and Joel Kuhnel are going to start the year in the setup role.
Michael Byrne had an amazing spring training. He pitched 11.1 innings, gave up only 7 hits, one homer, one run allowed, walked no one and struck out 17 batters.
He "looks" like he should be more of a setup/closer, but we are going to ease him in to the season in middle relief / setup role.
Justin Bruihl, Tejay Antone & Joey Lucchesi are going to all be a middle relief type role and hopefully eat a bunch of innings in relief for us.

We are going to sim ahead until about 1/3 of the season and then we will check back in and see how the Reds are doing!

Thanks as always for reading and feedback is always appreciated!

[FromElevenOne]

Good luck in your new season! I was wondering (as a total novice), what have you found to be the benefits of having a 6 man rotation? Is it your preferred way of setting up, or is it situational?

[WarningTrakPower]

Originally Posted by FromElevenOne

Good luck in your new season! I was wondering (as a total novice), what have you found to be the benefits of having a 6 man rotation? Is it your preferred way of setting up, or is it situational?

Thanks for question. Traditionally, I don't prefer 6 man rotation, although I have had some success in keeping starting pitchers healthy (most likely through luck however).

I prefer to have a minimum 6 legit MLB options heading in to ST with a couple AAAA type options available if need be.

If we make it through spring training injury free, then I have no issue starting the year in a 6 man rotation and potentially making an early season trade to bring it back to a 5 man rotation (see the Michael King trade in my Rangers dynasty report).

[WarningTrakPower]

We have simmed 1/3 of the season, so let's check in our the Reds!

After 54 games, we are sitting at 36-18!!! Only the Dodgers have a better record so far.



Here are some of the team stats! We had an amazing May going 20-6!



Let's recap some of the transactions we have made in the first couple months.

April 19th - Sonny Gray had a finger blister and missed about 2 weeks. He had a blister injury near the end of last season also.
Hunter Greene was recalled from AAA to take his spot in the rotation.

April 30th - Michael Siani was recalled from his rehab assignment. Chris Owings was DFA'd and eventually released when he refused AAA demotion.

May 6th - Tony Santillan was traded to Arizona for a 25yr old MiLB depth pitcher (Luis Frias) and a (soon to be) 24yr old MiLB 3B.
Sonny Gray recalled from his injury assignment (one start in AAA).

May 22nd - Tyler Mahle tore his meniscus and will miss a minimum of 3 months. Reiver Sanmartin recalled from AAA.

May 30th - Sonny Gray suspended for 6 games (and added to restriced list) for his part in a brawl vs Milwaukee.
Franco Aleman (2022 2nd round pick) had his contract purchased from AAA to make the spot start.

June 6th - Nick Lodolo sprained his elbow, will miss 1-2 weeks.
He is replaced in game with Joey Lucchesi who has a "dead arm" and out for a week.
He is replaced in game with Reiver Sanmartin, who sprained his UCL and will miss 3-4 weeks.
You couldn't make this up if you tried. All three guys went on the IL to call up some fresh arms from AAA.
Franco Aleman recalled to replace Lodolo.
Brandon Marklund had his contract purchased to replace Lucchesi.
Sam Bachman (30th overall in 2021) had his contract purchased to replace Sanmartin.

Ok, let's take a look at our starting pitchers stats so far.



Luis Castillo had a really bad April (ERA above 7), but followed it up with a really strong May (ERA below 3).

Vladmir Gutierrez continues to impress. His ability to command the strike zone will keep him on our roster for a long time.

Nick Lodolo has been fairly lucky to start his year (minus getting hurt).

Tyler Mahle was having his best year (until he got hurt). Those eight starts are type of performance we expected from him.

Hunter Greene has been very good since being recalled. Hopefully he can continue on this trajectory.

Sonny Gray has been hurt by the long ball (2.5 HR/9). It's a small sample, but he may be a trade candidate, if we can add to our rotation in the coming months.

Here is how our relief pitchers have done so far.



Lucas Sims has re-inheritted the closer role after the trade of Tony Santillan.

Brandon Marklund (pure reliever) was a MiLB free agent signing and has had a very nice year in AAA.

Sam Bachman (possible SP) has slowly worked his way up to his first promotion. We will be using him in relief, and although he may ultimately be a reliever, he will likely head back to AAA for rotation depth.

Here is how our hitters have done so far.



Jonthan India continues to produce at the plate and will be reaching arbitration for the first time this winter.

Joey Votto had an amazing start to his season (OPS in April of .991), but has slowed down a bit.

Masahi Yokoyama (albeit in a platoon) is proving his value with the bat, but leaves something to be desired defensively in LF.

Josh Donaldson got off to a slow start, but has had three multi hit games in the last five games.

Adalberto Mondesi had a nice April (OPS of .789) and then went ice cold in May (OPS of .443!).

Positions like SS & CF are looking like positions we will need to explore trade opportunities moving forward.

We will (likely) sim up to August 1st and then do another team recap!

[WarningTrakPower]

We have just past the trade deadline and we have fallen back to 54-45. St. Louis has run away with the NL Central (64-36) and we are 1/2 game back of the Dbacks for the 2nd wildcard!



We had a very poor July, but we are still in the playoff race.



Let's recap some of the transactions we made in the last few weeks.

June 9th - Hunter Greene placed on restricted list (7 game suspension). Nathan Eovaldi, who we just signed to a MiLB contract, has his contracted purchased.

June 13th - Joey Votto has "chronic back soreness" and misses about 4 weeks. Tyler Callihan has his contract purchased.

June 14th - Nathan Eovaldi gets the spot start and is injured after only throwing 10 pitches. He has "shoulder inflammation" and is still injured for another 8-9 weeks on August 1st.
Joey Lucchesi is recalled from his rehab assignment (just sent on rehab assignment earlier that day FWIW).

June 20th - Activated Hunter Greene off restricted list and optioned Franco Aleman to AAA.

June 22nd - Claimed Mitch White off waivers (from LAD) and optioned Sam Bachman to AAA.

July 2nd - Michael Taylor fractured his foot and went on the IL. Purchased the contract of Austin Hendrick (12th overall pick in 2020).
Traded TJ Friedl (plus 27yr old AA 1B and 22yr old A+ pitcher) to Tampa for Manuel Margot. Margot is signed for next year at $10.1m, but the Rays retained 80%.

July 3rd - Signed international amateur free agent Ricky Bonilla for $5m signing bonus.



July 7th - Activated Joey Votto from IL and optioned Tyler Callihan.

July 9th - Traded Sonny Gray to Baltimore for cash. He continues to be prone to giving up the long ball as his season HR/9 is above 2 in 16 starts.

2023 Draft Recap
1st Round - Decided to "punt" this pick on an impossible HS 1B (Nolan Stevens).
2nd Round - Drafted a soon to be 23yr old SP (Garrett Hester) who signed for $1.6m. He went directly to AA, as he is basically fully developed.
3rd Round - Drafted a HS pitcher named Brandon Olivera. He was a riskier selection, but worth the gamble. He signed for $4.4m.
4th Round - Drafted another HS pitcher (Alex Clemmey) who may be even riskier. He has a very less than ideal personality profile, but there was no one else worthy of this selection.
5th Round - Drafted a HS 1B/LF named Zach Wadas. This left handed hitter is a long shot and has already got off to a rocky start in rookie ball.

July 20th - Traded AA LF Reed Trimble (our 4th round pick in 2021), MLB/AAA pitcher Reiver Sanmartin and a 23yr old 2B from A+ with low upside (MiLB org guy) to Toronto for Teoscar Hernandez (plus 50% salary retention).

July 26th - Placed Manuel Margot on IL with a sprained knee. Recalled Michael Taylor from rehab assignment.

July 28th - Sent Jesse Winker on rehab assignment.

Here is a look at our starting pitchers stats.



Vladmir Gutierrez was due for regression. In 5 starts in July, he gave up 8 homers in just 24.1 innings.

Nick Lodolo has had very poor command since returning from IL/rehab assignment. His MLB career BB/9 is now 2.7, but on July he walked 13 batters in only 15.1 innings.

Joey Lucchesi was being used as a follower behind an opener, but has gone back to just a tradional starter his last 4 games.

Here is a look at how our relief pitcher stats.



Lucas Sims is having a very nice season. We explored the possibility of adding a closer at the deadline, but the cost was too expensive.

Michael Byrne may have an ERA around 5, but his FIP is below 3. We had explored possibly sending him down and moving Lucchesi back to bullpen, but ended up leaving it as is for now.

Now, let's take a look at how our hitters have done so far.



Joey Votto continues to lead by example as the captain on this team. We expected a year at or below the sub .800 OPS he produced last year, so this is outstanding at almost 40 years old.

Jonathan India has really cooled off. His season OPS is still above .800 and hopefully he gets hot down the stretch.

Masahi Yokoyama is having great success in the platoon split with Nick Senzel.
Senzel has a .901 OPS vs LHP in 112 PAs and he had a .937 last year in 144 PAs)

Christian Vazquez has been a pleasant surprise. His hitting stats are right in line with his career averages while providing elite catching defense.

Adalberto Mondesi has been underwhelming with the bat (to be polite).
Had there been a trade partner to upgrade at SS, we might have had to take it.
We like what he brings on the base paths, he just needs to find a way to get on base.

Michael Siani was given the starting CF job and we have already replaced him with Manuel Margot. Hopefully he can still be an internal optrion for us in 2024.
Currently he is being used our 4th OF, but is likely headed to AAA when Margot returns.

We are going to sim ahead to the end of the regular season and then we will check back in with another update.

As always, thanks for reaching the dynasty report!